Between Trace and Silence | Conversation between Alexander Fichtner and Hella Sinnhuber

In conversation with Hella Sinnhuber, Alexander Fichtner gives an insight into his photographic practice between journalism and art. Taking survival in a tent as his starting point, he talks about his work in the Sheikhan refugee camp and his minimalist visual language, which allows places and traces to speak for themselves.

Characterised by his artistic and journalistic work, Fichtner combines documentary accuracy with artistic condensation. His images thematise memory, loss and invisibility – without staging reality.

The dialogue also addresses the role of photography in the context of democracy and freedom of the press: as a visual testimony that attracts attention and makes social responsibility visible.

Hella Sinnhuber, cultural scientist, journalist and co-founder of the experimental cultural laboratory artpark Hoher Berg. She has presented radio and TV programmes for many years, including for WDR and ZDF. She teaches cultural journalism at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences.

Alexander Fichtner, born in Herten in 1979 and raised in the Ruhr region, works as a freelance photographer, journalist and artist. He studied fine art and photography at the FAdBK in Essen, where he graduated as a master student of Professor Stephan Paul Schneider. He also studied journalism and public relations at the University of Applied Sciences in Gelsenkirchen. His research has taken him to the Baltic States, the Balkans and the Caucasus. His photographic work moves between journalistic precision and artistic expression without distorting reality. It is precisely the absence of people that characterises many of his pictures and lends them a special atmosphere of stillness, emptiness and isolation. Places and objects emerge as the actual narrators.

An event organised by the Fritz Bauer Forum.